Carlyon Sahib Part 35

CARLYON.

What do you mean? [_Putting up his hand._] Turn off that light from my eyes!

VERA.

You must face more light than this. I have not helped you. There is no rest for you here, no rest anywhere that I know of.

CARLYON.

You are not failing me after all?

VERA.

I have watched him till he is almost safe. If you want him to die now you must kill him outright--by force.

CARLYON.

Vera, you have mistrusted me.

VERA.

[_Pa.s.sionately._] No. I have betrayed you! Can't you ever see it? I have turned against you, and you are beaten! You have told me everything. I alone----

CARLYON.

_You_ daren't lift your voice! I don't fear that.

VERA.

There are proofs enough without me! And witnesses; Selim first----

CARLYON.

[_As if stung._] Be quiet! Let me think. [_Pause._] To think that _you_ should have done it! To think of the vermin I have trusted before, and none of them ever betrayed me!

VERA.

No; _you_ betrayed _them_! Oh, it is their blind faith that has made you so pitilessly false!

CARLYON.

To trust _you_--it was like trusting myself!

VERA.

[_With a bitter laugh._] It was! It was! It was like trusting Judas! [_A pause._] Was I to be a Koreb, mad and heartbroken in prison? Or like Elizabeth, who has lost her very soul, and cannot see that there is any human being in the world but you?

CARLYON.

[_With a scornful laugh._] But _you_ can? Is that it? Good G.o.d! to think a wretched instinct like that should master you! To betray _me_ for a chance lover!

VERA.

It was just the opposite. If I had not half-consciously loved him you could never have deluded me. I wanted to stifle my heart, and I all but stifled my conscience with it.

CARLYON.

When did you change? How long have you meant this?

VERA.

I have not changed. I meant it ever since that night, when Elizabeth--[_breaks off_]--when I saw that to trust in you was to go mad!

CARLYON.

And you have been lying to me all this time!

VERA.

Were you to come at him with your poisoned daggers, and I not shield him with as much as a lie? [_Checking herself._] Oh, Father, I did not mean to be like this to you! Father, he is not your enemy any more than I. He will spare you in every way----

CARLYON.

Do you mean he will not press to have me hanged? [_She shakes her head._] You spare me that? [_With fury._] I am not to be killed, after all your hunting? Only maimed and branded and left for stray dogs to tear? I am to "live it down," am I?--crawl on through a weary, interminable life----

VERA.

It can be as short as you will. I will wait and bear the shame for you.

CARLYON.

Suicide, is it? [_With a short laugh._] No, I won't do that for you. The thought of it gives me all my natural spirit again.

VERA.

Yon cannot be afraid of that too?

CARLYON.

Afraid? No. But I have not finished living. Do you think I am an old man? There is as much blood and muscle in my arms as there ever was. I feel life leaping in every limb. I won't kill myself. No! nor let another man kill me! And I won't bear that penance either. There are other places besides England and British India.

VERA.

Oh, why do you rage like this? Can you not face your hour when it comes, take your defeat, like a strong man, steadily?

CARLYON.

Defeat? Defeat? From him and his crazy natives? Who will believe their story against mine? [_She is silent. A slight pause._] But suppose I confess all. Suppose I stand up straight before all Englishmen and bid them judge me: "Here I am: I have broken rules and treaties; I have fought with all weapons; I have had no law nor conscience nor pity--for your enemies! I am yours to chain or unchain; I am your fighting man, your bloodhound, your leashed panther! Have you no use for me?" Do you think, among all the swarming cowards that govern us, I shall not bring a host to my side when I say that?